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Beautiful things for you and your home!

Lots of homely thoughts on sewing, baking, papercrafts, gardening and all the things that go towards making your house a home

Sunday, 5 October 2014

Padded Case For Laptop Or Tablet

My Dad had recently got a second hand laptop/tablet type thingy (to be honest, I'm not entirely sure of the distinction, but either way, he's got one). It didn't come with a case and, although he doesn't really have plans to be carrying places, he looks after his stuff and I knew he'd want a case to keep it safe and tidy.

I had a rummage in my stash, thinking this would be a good opportunity to use a bit of it up. After diving around in it for a while, it became clear that really, nothing I had would be suitable. Most of it, to be honest, was a bit girly. So - oh dear - I *had* to go fabric shopping!

My Dad is a keen gardener and has an allotment too, so something that tied in with this seemed a good place to start and a short while later I discovered this rather fun print from Michael Miller. It also comes in a cream colourway too.

The actual cover for the tablet was a fairly easy, envelope sort of design. I just laid the laptop on the fabric and folded the fabric up until it made a sort of pouch, and then folded the top down enough to make a flap that could be fastened with Velcro (hook and loop tape) - if that makes sense. It will. It was what I had originally planned to do with this tablet cover before I made a booboo and had to replan rather suddenly.

I used the vegetable fabric for the outer cover, and upcycled a cotton pillowcase that we no longer use. This was a great option as it's nice and soft from many washings, and its soft lilac colour complemented the main fabric colour, picking up the purple shade of the mushrooms in the design, and doesn't scream 'girly fabric' when you open it.

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For the padding, I used two layers of a thin-ish wadding. I probably could have got away with one but I knew from previous use it can sometimes get a bit flattened out in items like this, and even with the pressing during the making up, so I stuck to the two layers. I also switched to the walking foot on my machine which made things a lot easier.

I made a sandwich of the fabric, wadding and lining, stitched around the edge, leaving a gap for turning and then turned it right side out. So I now had a padded oblong - veggie one side and lilac on the other. If you wanted to quilt the fabric, this would be a good time to do it but I didn't plan to so I carried on.

Taking the measurements from before as to how big the pouch bit needed to be, I popped a couple of pins in, one each side to mark it. Then I took the edge that was going to be the top of the pouch, the bit you'll see when you open the to flap up, and top stitched across just to make it look more finished.

Next I folded the bottom edge (the bit just topstitched) up to meet where the pin markers were and clipped the fabric in place, ready to sew. You can use pins of course, but I'd recently got some of these Clover Wonder Clips so it seemed a perfect opportunity to try them out. Have to say, on squishy fabrics like this, it was so much easier than trying to wiggle pins in which can sometimes result in the bits shifting. I've also seen people use just cheap hair slides - the kind that you slide in and bend to close - for the same purpose which is just as good.

So, a quick stitch up each side of the pouch bit and it was looking more like a case, rather than a changing mat!

Obviously doing things this way means the seams are exposed, so I had got in some bias binding to edge the whole thing with. That was a job in itself! I couldn't find the right brown to match the base colour and the only other matching one I could find was a deep lilac, which toned with those mushrooms beautifully but also pushed it a little too much back into the 'possibly-a-bit-girly' realm again. A bit more hunting and I found a green binding that matched.

Putting it on took two goes as I wasn't very happy with the first attempt. The second attempt still isn't perfect but I couldn't risk unpicking it all again and stretching it or putting another hole (I slipped!) in it. After that it was just a case of marking where the closure was to go on each side and lining them up. I box stitched these on both sides as it needs to withstand a lot of opening and closing.

The Velcro could have done with being a few millimetres over really

A quick stitch on of a 'Love, Maxi' label and it's ready to go!

I made this out of one Fat Quarter, and there's a little strip left. I realised when it came that I couldn't get the amount I needed in one go, staying in the direction of the print, but I don't think it's an 'obvious' directional pattern so I was happy to use it in the best way I could and I'm pretty happy with the way it's turned out. Hopefully my Dad will like it, and I hope you do too!

I'm a writer and crafter who enjoys creating stuff! Whether that's papercraft, jewellery, baking, sewing or photography, there's definitely a creative gene bouncing about inside that does its best to get out as much as possible!